#77 - Do my own taxes

Well, my 2007 Federal & State taxes are submitted! I have to do local & send in what I owe for my PA taxes, but other than those 2 easy things, I'm finished. I'm going to mark this as completed because I'll be done with it by the end of the night. I was kind of nervous about doing this myself, but I think it worked out really well and was much easier than I thought!

Major props to State Farm for letting me file Federal & State online with Turbo Tax for free.


---- EDIT: It's 3/31/2008 - I've gotten my refund, my State taxes check has been cashed, and I sent my Local taxes (I was even). Sweet.

#73 - Try 5 new non-chain restaurants. (3/5)

After the St. Patrick's Day Parade yesterday, Mike, Mom & I met up with the rest of the Tap Pups at a very nice bar/restaurant in Harrisburg - Stocks on Second. Mom and I had drinks and then we got a table and ordered dinner and an appetizer. Everything was delicious and we left full & happy. Prices were a bit high, but definitely worth it (helps that mom treated us. :-).

#25 - Visit Cindi in VA

I visited Cindi at the very beginning of March! I blogged about it in a post here:
http://tenthz.livejournal.com/1023971.html
on my personal blog. Lots of fun!

Faking It

Faking It, by Jennifer Crusie

I picked this up in a lot full of books I got from someone on craigslist. I thought it looked like a quick read and a nice break from reading All The President's Men. It was!

Not much to say about this one. I was surprised when it turned into much more of a "romance novel" than I had expected (mostly because I didn't read the entire book jacket!), but it was entertaining, kept my attention, and had an interesting plot with lots of twists and turns.

Back to reading All The President's Men now!

#72 - Try 12 new recipes (and actually use the recipe). (4/12)

This afternoon, I whipped up a batch of Chocolate Chip Muffins. I got to use muffin pan that I got for Christmas for the first time. I used muffin cups to reduce the clean-up. I really hate cleaning muffin pans. They turned out really well - very rich, though. Probably only need about half the chocolate chips.

Ingredients:
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/3 cup light-brown sugar
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2/3 cup milk
* 1/2 cup butter -- melted and cooled
* 2 eggs - beaten
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 package (12 oz) chocolate chips
* 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans -- chopped (optional)


Preheat oven to 400 F. and grease up twelve muffin cups.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, stir together milk, eggs, butter, and vanilla until blended. Make a well in center of dry ingredients; add milk mixture and stir just to combine. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Spoon batter into muffin cups; bake 15-20 minutes, or until a knife inserted in center of one muffin comes out clean. Remove muffin tin to wire rack; cool 5 minutes and remove from tins to finish cooling.

Serve warm.

(Source: http://66.206.5.232/superdisplay.asp?recipeid=239)

#20 - Develop an address spreadsheet for all family and good friends and keep updated.

I started this one a while ago, but I have to collect addresses and put them in the spreadsheet. This spreadsheet actually has 3 worksheets: My family, Mike's Family, and Our Friends. Right now it resides on my laptop, but I think I am going to import it into google documents and set it up so both Mike and I can edit it.

#72 - Try 12 new recipes (and actually use the recipe). (3/12)

Tonight I made a nice big pot of chicken soup with rice. I used better-than-bullion to make the broth, but I stuck to the recipe so that I ended up with the correct final product. I could have stood to add more water and broth, but now I have a much more hearty soup and I've got enough for lunch every day this week.

Here's the recipe:

http://www.grouprecipes.com/7442/good-old-chicken-with-rice-soup.html

Ingredients

* 8 cups chicken broth
* 1 onion, chopped
* 2 stalks celery, diced
* 2 carrots, diced
* 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
* 1 cup uncooked rice
* 1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
* 2 cups cooked chicken, diced
* salt and pepper (to taste)


Directions

1. Combine broth, onion, celery, carrots and garlic in a large soup pot.
2. Bring to a boil.
3. Add rice and thyme.
4. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add chicken and heat through.
6. Thin with more broth if necessary.
7. Add salt and pepper to taste.

#72 - # Try 12 new recipes (and actually use the recipe). (2/12)

If you've ever been to Red Lobster and had their cheesy biscuits, you know that they are pretty much the best reason for going to Red Lobster. Well, I did a search for Red Lobster biscuits recipes and I found this one. When I made it, I halved it, but I'm still counting it as following the recipe because I didn't change anything. Seriously, Mike and I could probably have eaten 12, but we shouldn't. Next time, I'm going to make a full batch and see if they freeze okay. I was really pleasantly surprised how close these were to the real thing. Very awesome. And they took like 2 minutes to throw together and baked while I was finishing up with the meat sauce & the pasta.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2 c. Bisquick
2/3 c. milk
1/2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 c. butter
1/4 tsp. garlic powder

Mix Bisquick and cheese; add milk. Spoon on an ungreased cookie sheet
(makes about 12). Bake at 425 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Brush with
melted butter and garlic powder.

#89 - # Find pants that really fit me and are comfortable.

Honestly, I never thought this would be completed.

But the after-christmas sales this year were very good to me. I did breakdown and buy a pair of pants before the holidays for full price. ($30 - ouch) The after-christmas sales made up for it and I managed to get 3 more pairs of pants for around $10-15 each. I've now got 5 pairs of pants that fit me. Jeans, black slacks, brown slacks, khaki slacks, and a pair of pants that are nice enough to wear to work - but almost sweat-pants-ish. Which is definitely awesome. The new pants are all either from Lane Bryant or JCPenney. I think Lane Bryant is my new favorite store. Clothes that fit me - yay!

#72 - # Try 12 new recipes (and actually use the recipe). (1/12)

I thought I had written about this, but apparently not! Over the summer, my family had a get-together. For the life of me, I can't remember what the special occasion was! Anyway, I decided to make zucchini pancakes. My grandmother had given me the recipe (who knows why!) and it is still on my fridge. I don't think I'd ever make them again, but they were good. Just a bit too much trouble. Grating zucchini is not something I ever want to do for fun in my free time. They turned out pretty good, but probably weren't meant for traveling. Not everyone liked them, but they certainly did eat them all! I think there were a few leftover, but mom had them for lunch the next day.

I followed the recipe with no alterations, though! That was the main goal.

#74 - Use my fondue pot

For our family New Years Eve celebration, I decided it was finally time to open my fondue pot that I got almost 4 years ago! We had 2 different fondues - cheese and chocolate. The cheese fondue I did with no problems. We had pretzels, bread cubes, multi-grain tortilla chips, and sausage chunks to dip. It was very yummy and I think we ate almost every drop! I just used the simple white sauce recipe with the "cheddar cheese modification".

The chocolate fondue we had a bit more of a problem. Well, first of all, there wasn't enough. I had a pre-packaged thing that you just heat up and - viola - fondue! But it barely covered the bottom of the fondue pot and the ravenous masses were starting to lick their lips, so we decided to add some chocolate baking chips. It was okay until Mom suggested we add some half-and-half. Oops, adding cold milk to warm chocolate made the whole thing seize up. Mom took over from there and un-siezed it and it was very yummy. We dipped banana, apple, oranges, pretzels, and marshmallows (regular and strawberry). We didn't finish it all, but having a leftover lump of chocolate certainly wasn't a bad thing. :-P

The whole process was way easy and I plan on doing it again soon!

#73 - Try 5 new non-chain restaurants. (2/5)

The last day of work before Christmas, my boss took us all to Fiesta Mexico - a new Mexican restaurant in the area. It is, however, run by the same family that runs a local chain called El Rodeo. The menu and prices at Fiesta Mexico are very similar to El Rodeo, however, the atmosphere is very different at Fiesta Mexico. It is much more of a laid-back, may-I-please-take-your-order-sir type of restaurant. The restaurant itself is very spacious and there is plenty of room between tables. They did a great job of accommodating our large group (14).

#22 - Have my brother over for a sleep over.

I did this one sometime in November. After Albert slept over, we went to visit Aunt Karin and later had dinner at Pizza Hut with Mike. Albert slept on the futon and we stayed up late and watched movies "on-demand".

#13 - Cover my outside door with wrapping paper at Christmas time

It was harder than it looks and it keeps getting messed up at the bottom because the door is kinda dirty so the tape doesn't stick to it so well. But my neighbor complimented me on it, so I think it's a mission accomplished!

#63 - Post a video of myself singing on YouTube.

Well, that was easier than I thought. Once I figured out how to do it!